Wall Street Took Over a Vital Sign Language Service—And Started Union Busting

In January, Klug joined an effort to address staffing and other workplace issues by forming a union. This sent him on a journey that would eventually leave him and his coworkers out of a job, in what former Purple Communications employees say amounted to union busting. 

It also forced him to confront a contradiction in his industry. VRS interpretation is considered such an essential service that it is funded by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) through a small fee all phone users pay as a part of their monthly bills. Yet the companies that receive this federal funding are far from publicly accountable. Instead, VRS services are dominated by private equity, a notoriously opaque industry often associated with ruthless cost-cutting and profit maximization. 

The private equity firm Kinderhook Industries acquired Purple Communications in 2017, and workers who were hired in the following years describe an environment marked by high turnover, poor service and harsh labor policies. These workers believe that private-equity ownership is partly to blame for the conditions they faced on the job — and for the sudden closure of their workplace earlier this year.

Perched in front of a computer monitor with web cameras facing them, interpreters have to be ready to navigate whatever situation arises. Klug, who worked in the same office as Draeger beginning in the summer of 2021, says it can be challenging to navigate different ASL accents. 

“If I’m talking to someone from the South, the way they sign is different from the upper East Coast, which is known for much faster sign language,” he says. ​“In the Midwest, we’ll have different signs. If you go across the U.S., there are well over 20 different signs just for saying ​‘birthday.’”

Draeger says there were significant pay inequalities, with no clear logic articulated. For years, her hourly pay sat stagnant at $23. When she asked for an explanation, she says, she got nowhere. Her workplace was marked by a ​“lack of support from higher-ups,” she recalls.

In the case of her former employer, if you go up high enough, you will find private equity. Private equity firms buy up businesses that aren’t publicly traded on the stock market, often relying on staggering sums of borrowed money that the businesses themselves must pay back. In the last decade, that strategy has helped bankrupt dozens of brand-name retail chains. But private equity has also increasingly burrowed into other arenas of American life, ranging from housing to healthcare to critical communications services. 

For consumers, the stranglehold of private equity can mean rising costs and plummeting quality. For workers, when private equity calls the shots, layoffs and reduced staffing often follow, according to academic studies.

Purple Communications is a division of ZP Better Together, owned by private equity firm Kinderhook Industries. There is only one other major company in the VRS interpretation market, Sorenson Communications, and it, too, is owned by a private equity firm, Ariel Alternatives. Since 2017, these companies have maintained a virtual duopoly over the VRS market, according to a recent report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog group. There are only two alternatives: a small, Deaf-owned company called Convo Communications, as well as a new entrant called Tive.

This private equity ​“duopoly” enjoys a guaranteed income: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, telephone companies must provide VRS interpretation. It is free for users, funded by a surcharge on everyone’s phone bills. In 2023, following lobbying from the duopoly, the FCC hiked compensation rates for providers by up to 49%. Yet ​“these rate increases have not led to significant improvements to benefits, pay, or working conditions,” according to a survey conducted this summer by the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), the union currently trying to organize the sector. Survey respondents also complained of psychological distress and poor mental health support. (Sorenson did offer slight wage increases this fall, after the union drive launched publicly.)

While the VRS market has unique characteristics, private equity’s playbook remains effectively the same: hike rates while making deep labor cuts, as Luke Goldstein noted in The American Prospect.

“We weren’t humans who were providing a vital service,” says Draeger. ​“It’s almost like they forgot that the only reason they existed as a company is because we, the interpreters, were doing our jobs. Private equity doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about the Deaf community.”

Dr. Shaelyn O’Riordan is a Deaf interpreter, which refers to a specialist who works, often in tandem with a hearing interpreter, to ensure communication is effective. People who are native speakers of ASL are able to grasp nuances in communication and culture that non-native speakers are not, filling gaps in communication that can arise due to factors like language deprivation, physical limitations or dialect differences. Deaf interpreters should be staffed and available for calls when needed, according to Dr. O’Riordan; they’re especially important during discussions of sensitive medical or legal matters, as well as emergency calls.

“Private equity holders, by and large, are hearing people who have little-to-no clue about Deaf culture or how important services are to the Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Deaf-Blind communities,” Dr. O’Riordan says. ​“This means in their acquisition of VRS, they take little notice or accountability in ensuring the staffing of Deaf individuals within the VRS companies.” 

The FCC has sought input on whether VRS providers are failing to make Deaf interpreters available when their assistance is needed, and whether to provide additional compensation to providers when Deaf interpreters are added to calls. 

We spoke to Dr. O’Riordan over email and through the Deaf-owned service Convo; she refuses to use the private equity-owned VRS companies after several ​“horrific” experiences as a user. She told me exclusion, and a plummet in quality, has a real impact: ​“This is my life. I need interpreters every single day.”

Purple Communications did not respond to a list of questions from Workday and In These Times.

When asked to comment on this request, a spokesperson for the teachers’ retirement system pointed to a policy directing investment managers to consider a range of factors, including workers rights, when making investment decisions. The spokesperson did not comment on the retirement system’s Alpinvest investments or the union-busting allegations at Purple Communications.

The company’s labor issues predate its private equity ownership: In the four years leading up to its acquisition by Kinderhook in 2017, the company settled at least 21 unfair labor practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), according to the report from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. In 2020, the NLRB issued a cease-and-desist order for a number of behaviors, including threatening employees with reprisals for engaging in union or other protected activities. 

For those who lost their jobs at Purple Communications, it’s still difficult to avoid private equity. Klug, who started taking ASL classes in high school, has found work freelancing, and is also working part-time for Sorenson Communications, the other major private equity-owned VRS interpretation company.

“Luckily for me, I’m in the freelance field already,” he says. But other former coworkers had quit outside jobs to work full time at Purple, or were close to retirement, he says: ​“Now they have to start over.

Draeger, a mother of four, says the closure was financially stressful. She has been freelancing, and says she wants to start her own company, ​“because of stuff like this.”

Before she worked in this field, Draeger served in the Iraq War. ​“I was in the military, so I know what it’s like to be just a number,” she says. ​“The company turned us into just numbers, numbers on a graph or spreadsheet. All these outside forces have taken control of our profession without asking if we’re okay with it.”

This article is a joint publication of In These Times and Workday Magazine, a non-profit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers.